Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Deep in Debt

The other day, President Obama said, “America pays its bills.” I’m sure China was glad for that assurance, but I want to ask who piled up the bills America owes and who will pay them. I think we all know the answers.

The United States has dug a financial hole deep enough to reach China, and Congress is scrambling for a way to dig the country out of it. I’m sure the shovel will be passed down from one generation to the next for much, much longer than we can foresee.

Christians face a different kind of debt. It isn’t a financial debt; it’s a spiritual debt that we can never fully repay. We owe an eternal debt of gratitude to our Savior for the sacrifice He paid for our sins on the cross. He purchased our redemption—something we could never do. As a matter of fact, we could contribute absolutely nothing to it, because our sin had bankrupted us.

We are also indebted to share the gospel with the world. The apostle Paul confessed that he was a debtor to both the Greeks and to the barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise, so he was ready to proclaim the gospel (Romans 1:14, 15).

Today our nation’s financial crisis may seem hopeless, but America is still the land of the free. We can all be thankful for that, and believers can embrace an ironclad eternal hope because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Let’s offer heartfelt thanks to the Lord today and every day, and let’s share God’s love with others.